Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Big City Isn't So Big After All


Meet Mrs. Nicole:

She is Shelby's new pre-school teacher.  The first time Nicole saw Shelby she was this big:


That's right!  Nicole has known Shelby since before she was born.  We knew each other in passing from Target.  The first outing I had with my newborn baby girl was to the grocery store.  I just happened to run into Nicole.  To tell the truth, I had a hard time remembering her name.  After all, I was sleep deprived and only deal with about 1,000 people a month at work.  And, I was scared to death that I was doing something wrong already as a new mom.  Did I have Shelby in the car seat correctly?  Was the car seat supposed to go in the top of the shopping cart or the basket?  Will Nicole think less of me now that she knows I buy far too many Oreos?  

It was that chance encounter three years ago that lead us to Nicole's classroom.  One afternoon at work, she and I got to talking about how nervous I was that first time I ran into her at the grocery store.  I found out she was a teacher at the pre-school I had been trying to talk my husband into for months.  I had lots of questions, and she answered all of them honestly and perfectly.  

I was still laying my case for Bryon when I ran into Nicole once again here:



Yep, gymnastics!  Nicole confessed that there was a chance she would be teaching the three-year-old class.  It was like it was meant to be.  My wonderful husband finally agreed to give it a try.  Which leads us to today:






Today was the big day.  Shelby started pre-school!


All went well.  Haley was the only one upset about the situation.  She spent the entire five hours saying, "SheBy?"  I had to reassure her Shelby would be coming back soon.

Nicole's exact words when I picked her up were, "She was a ROCK STAR!"  Shelby's not-so-exact words to me asking what she did all day were, "Played, colored, read a book about bunnies, had a raisin snack, and drew squiggles and an 'H' in my peach-colored journal."  She was also obsessed with what she could and could not do in circle time.  Yes, you can sit still and listen.  No, you can not play a pretend horn or beat on some pretend drums.

So, the moral of the story is, be nice to everyone.  You never know who is going to end up being your kid's superhero!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Shelby's First Fish!

This morning, Shelby caught her first fish, a perch on Lake Grapevine, using some smelly pink bait on her small pink Barbie pole.  
Her face says it all--scared and excited!


I also caught a small perch using pink bait on the pink pole. 

Haley admires Mom's catch

Bryon caught nothing using his silver lure on his fancy Bass Pro pole.  Maybe he needs to downgrade his equipment! 

I'm not sure who was more excited about the perch, Bryon or Shelby.  I think Bryon is secretly hoping one of his girls will be the first professional bass fisherwoman.  (Or maybe there are pro-bass-fisher-women.  I'm just not that up on the pro-fishing world and am too lazy to google it.)